It's Her Future (1978)

[music] What will her life be like when she's grown? Will she be married? Will she have children? [music] Will she work? Most likely, she'll do all these things sometime in her life. Nine out of 10 [music] female students will be employed someday. >> [music] >> Many will spend 25 years in the work world, even if they're married and have children. [music] 48% of all women work outside the home today. [music] These young people will soon be part of the labor force. They've chosen to attend vocational technical schools as part of their high school curricula. Some may devote their lives to their work, but most will choose a career along with marriage and a family. They're as different from one another as the career choices they've made for themselves. And from the vast number of vocational offerings, each made her special choice that spells out a good future for her. These are some pamphlets from the vot school that you may take home and look over. Maybe it will help you in making your decision. [snorts] Also, here are some leaflets. Machinists, welding. Well, my first uh feeling was I thought, well, she get into a trade that's all men and it's very rough to get into that. And then well, it could down the thing I didn't think she could do would be lifting all them heavy tools up cuz some of them are pretty heavy in there. cosmetology, electrical construction and maintenance. >> Maintenance, carpentry. I was concerned about the boys that would be in her class at Botech. Um because of boys using rougher language than Dorene hears at home, >> auto mechanics. >> What I do see though uh is a growing trend for VTEC to really want to help, to really want to develop programs. When I first came here about four years ago, you know there it was it's very difficult almost impossible for any of our children to go to VC and get into anything >> appliance repair, electrical construction and maintenance. >> My concern was I was wondering how it would interfere with her getting into college if it would uh count towards enough credits for her to go to college. >> It's pretty rough. That's what my fear was and at first and then now I begin to like it cuz she likes it. >> First I'm going to see if I can make it as a master plumber first and then after that I want to go travel then maybe I'll get married after that. I guess >> we've already constructed the gas line supply pipe to the thermostat. >> My father he was sort of against it cuz he wanted me to take something more easy, more ladylike. You could say more of a woman's type of job. >> Okay. It's necessary then on the hot water heater to install a union, a three-part ground seat union so that you're able to hook the heater up being a stationary point to the existing gas plate. >> I mean, I'm kind of proud of her >> cuz I figured, well, this way she's not going to have to worry about everybody waiting everybody do this for me, do that for me. She can do it herself and not worry about having the hassle on getting it done. Sometimes you get discouraged, especially when you're the only girl and you think, "I'm just going to quit and I'm just going to do something easy." You start thinking about money and then, you know, all this all the things that come with it. This sounds so good if you stick with it. >> She has to stick it out. That's the main thing. She can't let nobody back her down or push her off or determined not. But she's determined to go, she'll make it. And oh, everybody didn't like this. You have to be determined to do what you want to do. Well, I figured that anything that you like to do that you should uh have that as a job. You only weigh 110 lbs and a lot of people tried to disenourage me in taking radio and TV repair because of my weight. Uh the equipment here has uh rollers on it so you don't have to do any lifting of heavy equipment. I don't think you really need all that much physical strength as much as you know mental strength just concentration. I like to see things. I like to produce things. I like to see them like change form, you know, and like become something. It's real gratifying when you make something and then you see it being used somewhere. Yeah, you get dirty, but that you can clean it off. It doesn't matter, you know. It's not a big thing. And in terms of [music] not being feminine, um, I don't see why it's not. I don't see why, you know, it's either male work or female [music] work. You know, you use a brain to do it. You know, you use your hands and you do the work. 15 or 20 years ago, uh, vocational offerings or vocational education was taking place in the so-called basement or sellers of um comprehensive high schools or of um buildings or in uh industry settings and uh you basically saw your auto mechanics or machinist type courses and they were very much male-dominated. In recent years, in the last five or six years, we've had an increase in the number of women in vocational education, the number of female students that we have taking the course offerings. We've been able to place uh 72% of our students and um >> in addition to that, we have several others that are going on to college training. >> Hopefully, I'll be >> some type of engineer. I'm really not sure yet. And uh hopefully I'll be independent. I want to be independent. And whether I'm married or not, I don't know. I don't plan on getting married for another five, six years. I'm sure she will get married. She loves the family, you know, when we get together. But um as far as uh her career, that's topmost in her mind right now. I I feel that Dorene uh has good judgment, has used good judgment in in her decisions, and I wouldn't hesitate to support her in whatever judgment she should make within reason. Okay. >> She always um wanted to build things, do things around the house with the hammer and nails and whatever. And when she got old enough, oh about 5 years old, we got her a tool chest and she'd go back in the woods and just spend hours back there. We went out and we built tree houses all the time, you know, and I like to, you know, say, "Oh, let's put a wall here and a wall here," you know, and put a door here, you know. I like to say what went where and build them cuz I like I love working with my hands. I like it because I like math and I like to apply the math to the surveying. You turn angles and you have to calculate how many the angles you turn and you have to take degrees and minutes and calculate the degree of air. It depends on the temperature outside. You have your wind factor and your temperature factor and all this torque into it. >> We have a number of our students who are enrolled in pre-engineering courses in our technology program. We also have them going on to art institutes or the culinary institute for additional training so that it is possible for our students to take a vocational offering as well as enroll in a college program back at their home high school. I am engaged and I do plan to be married, but I do want to continue my art and I want to get further training in this art field and probably open up a business or something like that. I had muscular since I was seven and it hasn't gotten worse, but hasn't gotten really better either. So when I got to this when I'm here at the school, they helped me a lot, you know, to get up and downstairs. So that was kind of difficult, but they gave me a key to the elevator. Then here in class, I was given a special desk to work on. My main interest in sending u Lori to go was um in the fact that I thought it was a very good place for her to um learn a trade. Lor's invol she's in food services and has been for the last year. She really loves it. You know, she's in baking and in um working at the lunch room or cafeteria that they have there, taking orders, busing, all of those things she's learned um there at >> Votech. paro. Okay. >> There is a large rise of Spanish speaking people coming to the United States. These girls will work as interpreters in different hospitals or various facilities related to the health field. I would say nursing is helpful at home and and as a job because you could always go back to it after you raise your family. It's not like you lose your occupation. >> In about two years I will be married but I still plan to continue in this course you know and even if I don't plan on working full-time. We're going to be building our own home. So, this will really come in handy. We have learned in here also like the good quality stuff. And if we're doing it, if I'm doing it myself, I know that it's going to be done right. You know, girls do come here because they're very curious. but they end up staying and going back and telling your friends that there's a little bit more than curiosity involved. It's very interesting that you locate some jobs. [music] [music] My mom was a Girl Scout leader and when I [music] was little I [clears throat] I hung around with the Girl Scout group and stuff and we were always outside. So I wanted to learn more about being outside and my parents were happy about this cuz my dad was in logging. We have no problems placing our female vote students when they complete training programs. Our biggest problem seems to be getting females or women interested in coming into non-traditional type training programs. We have a large employer demand in areas such as machine operation, metal fabrication and assembly, air conditioning and refrigeration, graphic arts, printing, welding, and if we could get the females interested in coming into school. There's a a large demand in the job market. >> We found out that the vocational schools have turned out the best students and uh we are going to put emphasis on trying to get the students from there. They seem like they have a better background and they also have the interest. Well, basically right now we have uh one refrigeration technician on the road. We also have a washer and dryer technician on the road who does hookups. >> Uh we have three females in our mechanical shop who are doing various jobs. One time we went into this house and there was this woman. She was about 70 and uh she was really surprised to see me and she said that she wished she could have been born a little later because all her life she was mechanically inclined. She'd fix things around the house and she said she's glad that you know women are doing it now because you know they never really had a chance before. Ready? >> When you get into customer relations, uh, you have a company car. Uh, if you work for a good company like I do, you usually have a lot of good benefits. Traveling is one of the big things that I enjoy because I'm the kind of person that really doesn't like to stay in an office eight hours a day. I made the decision to go into a vote tech school, a certain trade. Okay. So, I went into graphic arts and I think I really made a good uh choice because I don't think people really realize all the um openings and things that there are for women out there. I really sort of fell into it myself because uh now I know that there's a lot of different positions and everything open especially for women. Now after you press reset data, we're going to put this job disc in which is the actual job disc that we'll be recording. When I went to a vocational school, I received all that background and everything that I needed to talk over with my customers with. Even in a sales situation, uh, you really have to know what you're talking about before you can even attempt to go in and talk with the person. >> I don't think about it the night before. I don't think that I have to go to a real hard job the next day. It's just something natural that I do. [music] Hey, [music] hey, hey. [music] Heat. Heat. N. [music] [music] [music] Heat. Heat. N. [music] [music] Yeah. [music] [music] go.